Torino, la città al lavoro by Vittorio Zumaglino
The Museo Nazionale del Cinema presents Torino, la città al lavoro (Turin, the City at Work) by Vittorio Zumaglino, curated by Roberta Basano and Elena Boux, on the historic railings of the Mole Antonelliana from 14 April to 26 June 2023. The exhibition features 25 black-and-white photographs taken in the 1930s by Vittorio Zumaglino, whose photographic archive is preserved by the Museum.
The theme of work is one of photography’s privileged subjects: anonymous authors and celebrated names have defined a visual encyclopaedia of the major urban, industrial and social transformations between the 19th and 20th centuries.
Piedmont, too, has celebrated these themes through the eyes of its photographers. Among them was Vittorio Zumaglino, who, with the taste of his time, documented the changes taking place in Turin and the surrounding area during the Fascist period, portraying construction sites, factories, machines and men at work — all symbols of modernity.
The period between the two wars was a time of great expansion for Turin, and these images document a new cycle of urbanisation, with the city undergoing profound transformation.
The photographs on display go beyond mere documentation, revealing Zumaglino’s gaze on the city or the factory as living organisms, in which every part is connected to the other: the worker and his labour, a passer-by and the city.
Within this relationship, his eye does not miss the traces left by the humanity that passed through those places, such as the shoes and tools beside a manhole, reminding us of the presence inside it of a sewer worker at work.
The exhibition was extended until 4 September 2023.
Vittorio Zumaglino
(Turin, 1904–1967)
Also known as Zuma, Vittorio Zumaglino was a journalist for the newspaper La Stampa, a sports correspondent and an amateur photographer. He later moved into cinema as a producer for Taurus, until the company went bankrupt in 1956. His archive of more than 28,000 photographs was donated to the Museo Nazionale del Cinema in 1992 by his daughter Piera, a central figure in the Italian feminist movement.
